Core Truths is Lisa
Fox's debut collection of 18 speculative short stories that explore the
quintessential values driving our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Each tale
culminates in a character's pivotal moment, the one that changes them forever.
Sometimes their journey leads toward a rare epiphany or a beautiful resolution.
But not every ending is happy.
This assortment of
science fiction, fantasy, and horror features robots and androids, biologists
and metallurgists. Witches, vampires, sea elves and other mythical creatures
traverse these pages along with ordinary humans living under extraordinary
circumstances.
All the characters in
this collection confront hard truths. When a father and son encounter someone
forbidden to exist, they must decide whether extending a kindness is worth
risking their lives. Hand-picked by her deceased father to undertake an
impossible mission, a young girl realizes that sometimes to be a hero, one
needs to be a villain. A scientist from a dying planet is forced to weigh the
value of one individual life against the lives of many; a scientist from
Philadelphia finds his sanity challenged upon making a remarkable discovery. An
ancient being questions the validity of doctrine. A clone questions what it
means to be human.
As speculative literary
fiction, these narratives glean their energy from the fantastical. Written to
shine a light on the world, each story in this anthology is intended to make us
think about who we are as people, about those Core Truths that govern the lives
we choose to live.
Purchase Links
https://www.amazon.com/Core-Truths-Lisa-Fox/dp/B0C1HWZ7YB
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Core-Truths-Lisa-Fox/dp/B0C1HWZ7YB
Excerpt
from “Don’t Blink”
I wrote
this piece after my husband and I visited the Cape May Zoo without our two
boys. It’s a story about time and portals and how the universe can warp into
something so completely strange and foreign in the blink of an eye. This
excerpt is from the opening section of the story where we meet our main character,
a harried mother whose guilt around being a “work hard, play hard” mom is
all-consuming, and throughout the piece we see her life moving forward in
almost a warp speed.
“Daddy
getting popsicles?” you ask. Your tiny hands grasp a toy bear and a toy robot,
plastic clicking on plastic in an epic, impossible battle.
Where is Todd?
What could be taking him so long?
“Soon,
buddy. Daddy will be here soon with your popsicle.”
We stop
at an empty bench, and I squirm myself out of the drenched backpack.
“Blue! Blue
popsicle!” you sing.
You’d
asked him for red—loudly. Unequivocally. Fearing a tantrum that would terrify
both human and animal alike, I dial my husband’s cell.
No
answer.
Of
course. He’s probably checking his stocks, or his fantasy baseball stats. Why
would he use a phone as a phone?
“Daddy
will get whatever they have. Remember, you get what you get—”
I turn
your stroller toward me. Before I can finish my sentence, I notice your left
foot. Bare. Without your Spiderman sandal.
… And you
don’t get upset.
“Aw, bud,
you lost your shoe. We just bought those!”
I feel
the sigh rise from my core; a lone bubble of oxygen pushed from the depths,
reminding me to breathe.
Exhale.
You stop
playing, still gripping your toys, and glance up at me, the twinkle in your big
blue eyes a bastion of mischief. Shrugging your shoulders, you giggle, and I
can’t help but smile, too. This… this is the easy part of parenthood. I tickle
your belly; you wriggle beneath my fingertips, your laughter a melody played at
my touch. I forget about shoes and ice pops, sweat and sunburn, and in that
moment, it’s just you and me swallowing a moment of joy with a gusto that makes
our eyes water.
“Missing
something?” An old woman shuffles toward us, cane in one hand, your sandal in
the other. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and offer her a smile as you resume
playing.
“Oh! He
must have dropped it as we were walking.”
Wistful,
the woman glances from you to me as she offers your shoe. Her gaze settles over
us, soft as fleece in winter, yet with a depth so familiar it’s as if I’m
staring into a mirror.
“Don’t
blink,” she says, resting her cold palm on my blazing shoulder. I wince at her
touch, at once comforting and jarring, and can’t help but notice the way her
gold wedding band cinches the loose skin of her knobby fingers. Her hand is
liver-spotted, its tremor like an ancient tree limb disturbed by a scampering
squirrel.
“Thank
you,” I reply. Without another word, she turns from us. Her heavy footfalls
crunch in the gravel path; a pained effort plagues every step as she ambles
toward the zoo’s exit. I listen and I stare until a quiet distance separates
us, and the old woman vanishes.
I secure
your errant shoe and stand, my legs wobbly and slick in the afternoon sun. A
tingle of cold heat stretches from my eyebrows up to my hairline, setting my
temples aflutter as the odd summer shiver tugs across my head like a snug cap.
“Looks
like we’re back in business.”
I steady
myself on your stroller; you gaze at me with those wide eyes and smile.
“Mommy.”
“Let’s go
look at the bears while we wait for Daddy.”
“Your
favorite,” you say, pronouncing the word as fayvwit.
Once
again, I secure the bag to my back and push us forward, leaning on the
stroller’s handles for support. From a distance, I see a momma bear skulk
through the tall grass of the American Brown Bear exhibit, tips of green
brushing her fur. Her baby pushes its nose against her back legs as they walk
together, in step and slow, always touching, always near.
Four
brown bears trudge through the leaves in the exhibit ahead, side by side at
first and then branching out—one ambling toward a rock enclosure, one toward a
grassy knoll at the far end. Still another lopes toward the observers who are clad
in jackets and sweaters and hats. The crowds are sparse, even for a chilly day
and I can’t help but wonder why surgical masks cover some of the children’s
faces. Their expressions linger, empty yet suspicious, as if expecting some
predator to sidle over them at any moment and suck away their joy.
And the fourth bear, the largest, she sits, staring
at me—into me—with big, sad eyes, as if she knows something, understands
something I have yet to comprehend.
Author
Bio – Lisa Fox is a pharmaceutical market researcher
by day and fiction writer by night. She thrives in the chaos of suburbia,
residing in New Jersey (USA) with her husband, two sons, and Double-Doodle
puppy. Her work has been featured in Dark Matter, Bards and Sages Quarterly,
Metaphorosis, New Myths, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and Luna Station Quarterly,
among other journals and anthologies. Lisa has had work nominated for the
Pushcart Prize and for Best Small Fictions and is a previous winner of the NYC
Midnight Short Screenplay competition. You can find Lisa and her published work
via her website: lisafoxiswriting.com or on Twitter @iamlisafox10800.
Social
Media Links –
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamlisafox10800
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisafoxiswriting/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/lisafoxiswriting/
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